Tag: War on Christianity

During the NFL Draft, plenty of young men kissed and shared PDAs with their significant others or wives.

There was no talk, no debate of heterosexuals sharing love and emotions with their significant others. However, seeing Michael Sam kiss his boyfriend Vito — a proud black gay man kissing his Caucasian boyfriend — makes some people uncomfortable.

Michael Sam is a person who has been through the trials and tribulations of coming out, first to his college teammates and then the world. The former Missouri star being selected by the St. Louis Rams in the seventh round Saturday was a moment they shared, something that has never happened and right then and there they deserve to share that special moment together. America witnessed it.

What America — and everywhere else — doesn’t need is reactions like that of Ole Miss basketball player Marshall Henderson (though Henderson claims his words were only an “experiment”). Everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, failure to understand how monumental the draft choice and subsequent kiss is becomes foolhardy on many levels.

Millions of people have had to hide over the years — whether moments of great triumph or failure. In life, there’s nothing better than having your significant other there for you during a critical event.

The St. Louis Rams made history on Saturday, taking former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam in the seventh round of the NFL draft, making Sam the first openly gay player to ever be selected.

And over the last couple days, the footage of Sam learning of his selection and celebrating with his family and boyfriend has gone viral, with the clip of a teary-eyed Sam and his boyfriend sharing a hug and a kiss becoming a regular in ESPN’s SportsCenter rotation.

For most, the scene has resonated as a powerful symbol of a changing landscape in the macho world of professional athletics, but for some less progressive minds in the sports world, the smooch has been portrayed as distasteful, and those offended by the show of affection haven’t been shy about taking their thoughts to Twitter.

It started on Sunday with Miami Dolphins cornerback Don Jones, who was fined an undisclosed amount and excused from team activities after sending a tweet that described the video of Sam and his boyfriend as “horrible.”

The post would have been a poor choice for any NFL player to send out, but was particularly noteworthy coming from a Dolphins player, considering the turmoil the team went through this past season amid the Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito bullying scandal.

Unfortunately, the negative reaction didn’t stop there, and on Monday, former Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson — no stranger to controversy, himself — posted a series of tweets to the 67,000 followers of his Twitter account in response to Sam’s celebration:

When it started, who could possibly have known it would turn out like this?

After all, it emerged right after the historic ’60s Civil Rights movement, which nobly outlawed racial segregation in America. And in the warm glow of the Martin Luther King era, many people came to believe “gays” were simply the next group needing protection from discrimination.

Of course, being an overwhelmingly Christian nation meant millions of Americans strongly objected to homosexuality on moral and religious grounds. But Americans are also the most pluralistic, tolerant and open-minded people on earth, and were increasingly inclined to give “gay rights” activists the benefit of the doubt.

Eventually warming up to a growing “gay-friendly” culture (promoted at every turn by the news and entertainment media), Americans abandoned their previous caution, flung their doors wide open and heartily welcomed the “gay rights” agenda with open arms.

However, it was a Trojan Horse. And most people had no idea what lay in waiting.

Today – as documented in October’s groundbreaking Whistleblower issue, titled “THE NEW SEXUAL REVOLUTION” – a new totalitarian order is sweeping the land.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday set the stage for a massive showdown between the federal government of the United States and American Christians who believe the government has no right to force them to act against their faith by mandating that they buy, provide or facilitate health-care coverage that includes sterilizations, contraception, or abortion-inducing drugs.

HHS released a new proposed regulation under the Obamacare law that the department presented as an accommodation to religious “organizations” that object to providing sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans. However, the proposal does not truly expand the exceedingly narrow religious exemption presented in the initial regulation, which was finalized last year, and continues to offer no exemption at all to Christian individuals or business owners.

“There really is no expansion of the religious exemption,” said Leonard Leo, a Washington attorney, who is a board member of The Catholic Association, a group of Catholic lay persons dedicated to applying the teachings and principles of the church to the issues of the day.

“The HHS mandate announcement today changes nothing, it is just another accounting gimmick and the HHS mandate continues to be a violation of civil rights, religious freedom and First Amendment rights,” said Maureen Ferguson, senior policy advisor to The Catholic Association. “Catholic institutions and other faith based organizations, including hospitals and universities and private employers, still do not get their First Amendment rights back and are still being forced to either violate their faith or pay crippling government fines for practicing their faith.”

The original regulation, finalized by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in January 2012, said virtually all health care plans in the United States must provide all women of child-bearing age with cost-free coverage for sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

A Christian high school teacher in Cheektowaga, N.Y., is suing her employer after district officials told her to take personal signs and religious items out of her classroom. Joelle Silver, a science educator who has been working in the Cheektowaga Central School District for seven years, decided to take legal action after receiving a letter asking her to comply with officials’ request.

So, what are the contentious messages and items in the classroom that were seen by officials as being problematic, you ask? WIVB-TV explains:

Just possessing a Bible still can be cause for a death penalty in North Korea, so it’s no surprise that the hermit kingdom remains No. 1 on this year’s World Watch List of the world’s most notorious persecutors of Christians, a project assembled by Open Doors USA.

Persecution of believers also increased sharply across Africa, eight out of 10 worst offenders are ruled by Muslim theocracy and Egypt, under the Muslim Brotherhood, actually saw its ranking lowered, but not because of any improvement there. It was because of worsening conditions elsewhere, the report said.

In North Korea, a possible lesser penalty for someone having a Bible would be for the offender, and three generations of his or her family, to be sent to prison camps, where at estimated 50,000 to 70,000 people are held.

Open Doors’ Senior Communications Specialist Paul Estabrook says the reclusive communist dictatorship earned the ranking based on the group’s five criteria for evaluating a country.

“North Korea doesn’t allow Christians any freedom in any of the five spheres used in the process,” Estabrook said.

“North Korea is known to have somewhere between 50,000 to 70,000 Christians in forced labor camps. And they’re there for doing nothing except trying to worship the Lord,” Estabrook said.

That aligns with what WND reported in July, that under newly installed leader Kim Jong-un, the enigmatic nation of North Korea still has about 70,000 people in work camps.

Sources confirmed North Korea has eased or lifted a number of restrictions for citizens since Kim Jong-un succeeded his father, Kim Jong-il. Bans have been lifted on Western foods such as pizza and french fries, and restrictions on the number of cell phones have been loosened, for example, according to Ryan Morgan, an analyst with International Christian Concern Asia.

However, whatever secular benefits may have trickled down to residents of the isolated nation, there is no evidence of any improvement in the condition of the persecuted church there, he said.

“We have not heard any reports of improvement for Christians in the country and have no reason to believe anything has changed,” Morgan said. “The regime still has up to 70,000 Christians locked away in virtual concentration camps.”